Between Galaxies and the Code: Contractual Networks and the Contours of the Privity of Contracts

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate through comparative law how contractual principles evolved, through an approach that includes authors of Law and Economics and those who discuss the information society. Classical principles of contractual law as private autonomy and privity of contracts have, throughout history, undergone a process of reinterpretation both in Common Law and Civil Law countries. It is concluded that network contracts, as practice, are well prior to the rise of the internet, but the new informational reality directly influenced economic transactions and deepened the gap between the classical legal framework and reality. There are still a few jurists writing about network contracts and this article intends to offer a new approach, under the perspectives of sociologists (such as Levy and Castells) and jurists (like Lessig) who write about information networks.